Alamance County funding cut ends supervised visitation program for abuse survivors

A $75,000 cut in Alamance County funding is ending Family Abuse Services’ supervised visitation program and moving its safe exchange work to the Burlington Police Department, forcing survivors to find new ways to protect themselves and their children. Linda Bruton, the nonprofit’s executive director, said one program will end outright and another will be shifted away from the agency as the county winds down temporary pandemic-era support that lasted three years.

For Latisha Heath, the services were not abstract. Heath said supervised visitation let her children see their father in a controlled, safe setting after she left an abusive marriage, and she called it “life and death” for her family. She said stepping into the system for the first time was scary and uncomfortable, but the service changed her family’s situation for the better.

Family Abuse Services has served Alamance County since 1985 and provides free walk-in advocacy, alternative housing, court advocacy, support groups, therapy and trainings. Its 2025 impact report records 8,817 services to 1,110 walk-in clients, 2,167 crisis-line calls in English and Spanish, legal protection in court for 562 people, and emergency housing for 92 clients and their families.

The county’s pullback lands after a year in which commissioners had already shifted course on domestic-violence funding. On June 16, 2025, the Alamance County Board of Commissioners approved a 2.5-cent property-tax increase, and later budget changes restored money to Family Abuse Services after earlier proposals would have cut it along with libraries, the animal shelter and the Alamance Rescue Unit. Now, survivors in Burlington, Graham and Mebane are losing a local option for managing contact with an abusive ex-partner while trying to stay safe.